Apple and Intel are the first adopters of TSMC’s new 3nm process for their next-generation chips reports Nikkei. This is a year ahead of the formal deployment of the 3nm node by TSMC but sources have stated that both Apple and Intel are already testing their designs for TSMC’s 3nm production for proper commercial deployment by next year.
TSMC claims their 3nm technology can increase computing performance up to 10%-15% vs. 5nm while shedding off up to 30% power draw against 5nm as well.
While Intel has received US backing to help in expanding their own fabrication plants in US soil, their own production has yet to get back on track with 10nm Tiger Lake-H still having efficiency issues and is only available for laptops.
Intel’s Alder Lake meanwhile will be a full spectrum launch on Intel’s own nodes. Intel is targeting 7nm by 2023 so 3nm looks to be far-off. Still, companies not looking to take advantage of bleeding-edge are seemingly Intel’s potential clients for their IDM2.0 plan.
It can be recalled earlier this year that Intel is planning to becoming a contract manufacturer much like TSMC but as they are not on the forefront of the process production technology right now, its a smart move on Intel to put their first-party products on bleeding-edge manufacturing process.
Intel is planning to utilize 3nm on at least two projects with 3nm CPUs for notebooks as well as data center CPUs.
Nikkei reached out to Intel who responded by saying they are working on their 2023 lineup but did not divulge further details.
Apple did not respond to Nikkei’s request for comments on their articles. You can read the entire article here.
